'40% of Swazis have HIV/Aids'

[dArKeR]

Lozitha - Swaziland now has the world's highest HIV/Aids prevalence rate, with the disease affecting about 40% of its people, an envoy of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was quoted as saying by the state-run Radio Swaziland on Friday.

Stephen Lewis, Annan's special envoy for HIV and Aids in Africa, told Swazi King Mswati III late on Thursday that "in recent months the kingdom of Swaziland has recorded the highest HIV infection in the whole world with almost 40% (of the total population of 1.1 million) testing positive."

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,6119,2-11-1447_1500769,00.html

[burrowowl]

1. OMG!

All the children left orphans, the work force almost decimated ....
Just think of how a few million out of the De(of)ense budget (over $500 billion per annum now and over 1/2 the Fed budget) for Swaziland could do something good in the world.

[Nevernose]

2. Have they not heard of condoms?

Are they just unavailable? Can someone educate me on this topic?

[Cloud]

6. I think it has to do with the global gag rule

I remember when Bush* took over in office he denied countries federal funding for family planning if they practice abortions and do not promote abstinence. Or something like that. That is all I know. Maybe someone else here knows more?

[Nevernose]

9. We can't blame EVERYTHING on *

We're not Freepers, after all. Africa has had this problem with AIDS long before Bush came to power, or even Clinton or Bush's daddy. So why, in twenty years, have they not gotten the message? Lile you, I'm hoping someone at DU can enlighten me.

[DrWeird]

11. The catholic church sure hasn't helped.

By going around telling people not to use condoms.

[burrowowl]

10. Condoms

have a certain failure rate, I forget what the ASME had to say on them, around 3% or so you should google condom testing procedures and results.
Even so-called enlightened Western Democracy types don't use condoms because: it limits sensitivity. And, they are very, very expensive for the regular fellow in Africa, not to mention if they want to use a lubicant (which may not exist) and .... etc.
And cultural mores, etc. Many men to have work have to go far from home and wife to earn a living and well prostitutes are a normal outlet and when many don't know what a germ is let alone a retro-virus ...
Well and remember in our so-called enlightened culture of the U$ of AIDs/HIV is on the rise among women because of ignorance and/or hormons don't think.

[ijk]

13. More explanations

In addition to the things other people mentioned about condom use (cost, the usual reluctance, lack of education and myths, religion, et cetera) another set of points:

AIDS is now endemic in much of subsaharan Africa. When you start getting to infection rates of 20 and 30 and 40%, controlling the disease is a whole new kind of problem. In the US, condoms are very good protection in part because so few people, relatively, have HIV; you multiply the couple-of-percent failure rate by the maybe-one-percent chance a partner selected at random has the virus, and you get a pretty slow spread. If 40% of people have HIV, the risks are very different.

Then you've got probably a far higher rate of undiagnosed cases, a huge population of children born with HIV (relatively rare here, particularly since drug courses can help prevent mother-to-child transmission)... It's really a whole other kind of situation. And, up to a point anyway, the more people who have the virus the faster it will spread - it's an exponential.

Also, I don't know whether it's true in Swazi, but in much of the third world sexism is a significant factor in the spread of AIDS. (Hell, in the US too, for that matter.)

[Rowdyboy]

3. The numbers simply defy imagination

Its incomprehensible, the suffering represented here is limitless and, now, unpreventable.

[roguevalley]

4. This is appalling. My uncle worked with the UN in Swaziland and loved it.

A great country and great people. I am sick to hear this.

[aquart]

5. I can't even imagine the totality of this catastrophe.

Family and tribal support systems in use for millenniums are being destroyed.

[Fovea]

7. In Europe in the 14th century

Froissart said that "a third of the world died." That was the black death. In Swaziland, at least, this is worse.

[SoCalDem]

8. The Africa Plan is working, just as planned

A depopulated Africa is the ultimate goal...Africa has lots of yummy resources, and the only thing standing in the way of their exploitation???...all those pesky people.. We don't want to feed them, or take care of them.. We just want their goodies..

The religiosos can justify the "non-help" because Aids/Hiv is something they got by being evil and nasty, so in their twisted little brains, they see no need to help..

* only promises to help..but after the speech, he never actually gets around to sending the money he's praised for offering..

The onl thing that he forgot about is this... People travel, and then they return home.. They bring whatever diseases they picked up along the way, home with them..

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Pyst]

14. Who planned this act you say?

Why the very people that are being boohoo'd over here. The Africans are responsable for their own atrocities and diseases. They threw the European powers out in the late 50's early 60's and ever since have fallen deeper into a mess of their own creation....I for one have no pity for them for they do this to themselves.

:nopity:

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. This is modern-day genocide...

...or an attempt, because, in the end, nature prevails. What is going to happen is that people will adapt to the HIV virus, and they will become immune to its deadly sentence. Meanwhile, those who are not immune will continue to be threatened by its existence.